[monaro0162]

Good morning all,

I am considering converting an A77 MK3 from 2-track to 4-track. I know this could be considered as sacrilege by some on here but I have my reasons:

I have bought and sold a number of A77s over the last year, I sold a few recently, and currently have three machines that are 'keepers' for the foreseeable future: I have a 2 track MK2 High Speed, a standard speed MK3, and a standard speed MK4, all of them in very good condition. To cover all tape track formats I really want to convert one of them to 4 track, so as to be able to play a lot of 4 track 3.75ips tapes that I have. I did have an AKAI 4000DS to do this, but since I've had the A77s, its has become very obvious how superior these machines are compared to the AKAI. Once you've had a 3 motor direct drive machine you will never want to use a single motor belt driven machine again! So I've now sold the AKAI, and I want to convert one machine, the MK3 (which has the most head wear) to 4-track.

There is a seller on e-bay selling new A77 2 and 4 track heads. According to the manual, there were two types of mounting on the heads - 1 hole fastening and 2 hole fastening. The seller says his heads are 1 hole fastening. I have has a look at the heads on the MK3 and I think that they are the 1 hole fastening. It is a bit difficult to see, photo attached, but below the bottom left hand wire, there appears to be just one screw holding the head in place.

So I am asking for advice on here on this potential conversion. Is there anything I should be aware of when doing this conversion? I know I could try and buy an A77 4-track, but I really don't want to only to find that the heads are worn and it needs lots of electronic work as they all do. I'd rather convert the MK3 that I have, with new heads, as its already a known quantity, and should guarantee perfect performance.

Any advice on the conversion appreciated.